We’ve been back from Portugal for 3 weeks. Time flies! Our Portugal trip was amazing. Ethan was such a good traveler.

The trip:

Our flight left LAX around 10pm and Ethan slept pretty much the entire 10 hours to London. Note to those of you with babies… plan a long flight when it’s their bedtime!! We bought a Kelty Kids backpack from REI for Ethan to be carried around by Jarrod. Unfortunately, Jarrod got sick right before we left on the trip. He was very weak, had no appetite, and a horrible headache. So once we landed in London, I had to carry Ethan around in the backpack. It was so heavy and uncomfortable. We had about a 3 hour layover. Ethan was great, we fed him, played etc. He was awake for most of the 2 1/2 flight to Portugal, but did great. He didn’t have trouble with his ears for both plane rides, so that was a relief. We got to Portugal around 11pm. My uncle, cousin and her son were waiting for us.

It was extremely emotional as we all hadn’t seen each other in 18 years. We were very fortunate that my cousin and her husband took off from work the entire time we were there and that we got to spend time with my aunt and uncle. They were wonderful hosts. We spent a couple days in and around Lisbon, then drove to the Algarve region (southern Portugal) with a day in Sevilla, Spain, a couple more days in Lisbon and then finally to the Douro Region (northern Portugal) home to Porto and Port wine. The highlight of our trip was the Douro Region. It was absolutely beautiful and the port was delicious.

Ethan was 7 months when we left for the trip. He had just started mastering the art of rolling and was pretty good at getting around a room. He thought his cousin Henrique (3 years old) was hilarious. Poor little guy got a stuffy nose on the trip (no surprise as his binky and toys were on the ground half the time and then in his mouth). Because of this, when he was cracking up, he snorted like a little pig. It was the most hilarious thing! Jarrod caught it on video. Ethan adjusted really well to the time change (8 hours). He only woke up once during the night for the first couple of nights and then he was back on his normal schedule.

We brought some baby food with us on the trip, though Ethan ate very little of it. At 7 months he still had a very hard time eating. I think we were partly to blame as we didn’t try giving it to him as much as we should have. We had him chew on some tough bread at a restaurant we went to, and he ended up gagging and spitting up. We had him do that because he was teething and broke his 2nd tooth on the trip.

Funny/ gross story. We went to a really nice restaurant in Lisbon for a late dinner. This restaurant had fadu singers which is typical Portuguese music. Well, Ethan got a poopy diaper. There was only one bathroom in the restaurant with two sinks and about a foot of space in between the sinks. Well, you have to do what you have to do, so I had my cousin go with me to the bathroom and we changed Ethan in between the two sinks. His poopy butt was up in the air as ladies tried to wash their hands. Needless to say they weren’t thrilled and we got some dirty looks.

Our flight leaving Portugal was delayed so they almost rerouted us because it would make our layover in London 1 1/2 hours. Heathrow is a huge airport so that’s about the amount of time it would take us to get from one terminal to the other. We decided to take that risk. After landing in London Ethan needed to eat. I made him a bottle as we juggled getting from the terminal we were at to the one we needed to get to. It was pretty stressful. When we went through security they made me drink Ethan’s bottle. It was so disgusting, it literally made me gag. I don’t know how babies drink it. As we were about to board the plane (which we made with minutes to spare) Ethan was selected for a random security check. We and everyone else got a huge kick out of that. Security took him out of his backpack and pretty much just played with him.

The flight home was not like the flight there. Our flight left Portugal at 11am so it was nowhere near Ethan’s bedtime. Poor guy was not feeling very well and wide awake. He had an episode that last probably 15 or 20 minutes where he screamed at the top of his lungs. When we finally got him to fall asleep I had a lady come over very concerned to make sure he was okay. One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that on British Air, in the bulkhead seats you can request a bassinet. It was awesome! I can’t imagine not having it and having him on our laps the whole time.

When we finally landed at LAX he had another episode when I tried to clean his nose in the customs line, little perk though, they let us to the front of the line. Overall, traveling with Ethan was definitely doable and we’re glad we did.

The weekend after we got home we went to Yosemite and Bass Lake for a cousins get-together. That was a lot of fun! Life has been pretty crazy and nonstop and Ethan’s had a few milestones the last couple of weeks. On his 8 month birthday he started crawling! He is everywhere and getting into everything! The baby gate on order can’t get here fast enough. He knows what he’s not supposed to have and that’s what he wants. He has been at daycare for a week. He seems to really enjoy it and I feel very comfortable with it. The ladies there have been working on getting him to eat and they have succeeded! He is finally eating pretty well and enjoying it. So, today I made him zucchini, butternut squash, plum and sweet potato to put in the freezer. Well sorry for the long post, but I guess a lot happens in 1 1/2 months!

Here’s a sneak pic of some of the unedited Portugal photos (we only took 1700).